1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to children's beds and, more particularly, to an infant's crib adapted for convertibility into a youth's bed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore infant cribs have been developed which are convertible into beds, and vice versa. For example, Boardman U.S. Pat. No. 1,378,518 shows a crib which can be used as a child's bed merely by removing its side frames and Yeager U.S. Pat. No. 1,388,783 discloses elements which can be combined to form a double bed, a twin bed or a crib. Another bed capable of being formed into three sizes is shown in Christensen U.S. Pat. No. 2,677,832 and has a headboard and footboard formed of frames which can be detached so that the largest bed has lower ends than do the bassinet and baby bed. Gottfried, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,403,412 also discloses removable panels at the ends of a crib and removable sides for forming a youth bed, adult bed or a couch. All of the above patents, however, provide only one position for a mattress, regardless of the type of bed (crib, youth or adult) in which the mattress is placed and regardless of the size of the person who will be using the bed.
Hull U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,919 similarly discloses a convertible crib lacking a height-adjustable mattress. The bed shown in Hull suffers from the additional drawbacks of having a conversion construction which requires additional parts and yields a youth bed twice as long as the crib, requiring a second mattress. A later patent issued to Hull, U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,597 provides two different mattress heights in a convertible crib, but again the youth bed resulting from conversion requires a longer mattress than does the crib. Lastly, Necowitz U.S. Pat. No. 4,525,883 shows conversion of a full size bed to a crib by means of a frame surrounding the mattress (much like a waterbed frame), the frame having apertures for insertion of posts so that a fence can be installed around the perimeter of the bed.
By contrast, Germano U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,346 discloses a device for adopting a set of crib springs for use with a separate headboard/footboard set, with or without integral legs, to form a regular bed. In the crib shown by Germano, the mattress can be vertically moved to different positions.
Known convertible cribs, such as those shown by Necowitz, Hull '919, Hull '597 and Boardman suffer from very heavy and/or bulky designs and some, such as Necowitz, are quite limited in their adaptability. Other convertible cribs have quite complicated adaption features. They require extraneous parts or larger mattresses and deny or at least restrict, crib mattress adjustment.